What Goes On
by MaclaurinSerious00
Summary: We never see or hear much of Saeko Mizuno. Perhaps this is why. Ami & her mother seem distant in the series. Perhaps this is best. A prequel or sequel is forthcoming.
1. 01:Flowers on the Wall

**"What Goes On" - a fanfiction by MaclaurinSerious00**  
>**<em>author's note: I don't own <em>Sailor Moon_ or its characters, the rightful property of Naoko Takeuchi, Kodansha, Toei, and diverse other demigods. Nor do I own Shinobu Maehara from _Love Hina_, property of Ken Akamatsu. "What Goes On_" _sort of rewrites the whole scenario, leaves out the crimefighting bit to focus on the drama, and I'm kind of halfheartedly noncommittal about who's what age. 1% AU, I guess. Oh, & I figured that we never hear anything about Saeko, so what is she up to, anyway? R&R, still sort of a noob at this, have a few unpublished efforts to my name already.  
><em>

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><p>01:Flowers on the Wall<p>

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><p><em>Mom –hope you have a good day. Off to school now. Love you, Ami-chan.<em>

Saeko sighed as she read the sticky-note on the modest sized fridge, plastered with stellar exams brought back and clippings from newspapers and magazines, paeans to the girl genius. _Well, you can't say I didn't at least get my daughter's growing-up from primary sources_. A picture of Ami and Shingo at the beach, holding hands, both, blushing. This one was a particularly finely-whittled point this morning. Her daughter's life in mementos. _Nothing about Dr. Mizuno's breakthrough in protein folding analysis. Perhaps that's enough to, _and she shook her head, her heart doing a brief turnover in her chest as she plucked an exam from the side of the fridge – where there was some spillover from the front - and, crumbling it up, fed it down the garbage disposal. _She couldn't have seen it. Still, right out there_. Saeko poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down, head in her hand, a tallish, thin woman, an older Ami, hair the same deep blue but showing a gray hair or two, wrinkles making a slow but sure onset on her once-babyface. Four hours of sleep overnight – actually, closer to two and a half – and she would have to be at work in three hours.

"So goes a well-lived life. But that's not really the issue, is it?" she asked the empty kitchenette that was clean due to sporadic use. "No, it's not. How did I get into it?"

A sleeper turned over in the next room, shifted in bed.  
>"Honey, you'll be late!" Saeko called out, before tipping back some joe. <em>Runs in the family. Iku-chan always dozing off in class<em>."

"Oh, cripes!" The young man hurried into the shower. _If he and Ami_, and her stomach turned over. Saeko thought back to the night before. Her heart had been in her throat – the taboo of it, the thought of her own daughter in the next room, liable to walk in at any time, wasn't she?

_It's obscene. I could be his mother. Saeko Mizuno, over to MIT at sixteen, then back to Tokyo the rest of her life to make the Nobel waiting list while working in a second-rate hospital. Just enough income to have a nice apartment & put her daughter through cram schools. Works to exhaustion, kicked a mild amphetamine habit, and now I'm a cougar. Seduced the boy who could be my son. and he likes it, and I sure like it. Hiro-chan never was as good in bed as he is._

"Okay, I'm going," the young man said, bookbag slung over his shoulder, running a quick hand through his hair to approximate a combing.  
>"Take care, sweetie," Saeko said as the two kissed, each giving a little tongue. The younger man tentatively gave Saeko's rump a tweak before running out the door. Saeko felt a surge of heat, but her lust collapsed and left with another sigh. She got up and emptied her cup in the sink before stumbling off to her bedroom. <em>Best get to bed for a little bit, I have that meeting today. <em>Another sigh.

"Ami-chan, wait up!" Usagi ran up behind her friend. "Want a donut?"  
>"Usagi, is that an entire <em>bag<em> of Boston cream pies?"  
>"Yeah, Mako-chan had some leftover. She's trying out the new recipe. Sure seems good! Anyway, did <em>bay-by bwothow<em> propose yet?" she punctuated this pinching Ami's cheeks like a fawning aunt. Ami shook her away.  
>"Usagi, you pick the <em>worst<em> times to bring things up!" Ami was close to breaking down sobbing. Usagi debated whether to speak or hold her peace. She had never viewed herself as such a relationship guru as Mina-chan, but Mina was God-knew-where, so Usagi decided to give it the ole college try.  
>"What's wrong, Ami-chan?" Ami choked down her sobs and grabbed a Boston cream. The two walked on in silence.<br>"I haven't seen Shingo in a week. I've talked to him over the phone for five minutes."  
>"So is Shingo…cheating?"<br>"I don't know, Usagi. I don't know. And that's what makes it so hard. We're inseparable for the longest time, Mom takes time out of her busy schedule to talk about the birds and bees, and all of a sudden he's gone and cold."  
>"Well, sometimes Mako-chan is busy."<br>"_It's not the same!_ He's hiding something, I know it." Usagi could see it in her friends' eyes – conviction. Ami knew something was wrong, and something was wrong. Usagi lost the bubbly princess persona in a second.  
>"Okay. I'll talk to him."<br>"Usagi, _don't_."  
>"So you're going to die over this forever? Come on, Ami-chan, I'll talk to him and we'll find out. Just know what's happening."<br>"Usagi.."  
>"Ami." Usagi took Ami by the shoulder &amp; halted her. "I'll talk to him. Okay."<br>Ami looked at the ground for a long moment, then cracked a smile. "Okay, Usagi. Thanks."  
>"Alright! Now let's get going. So aren't these Boston cream pies to die for?" This as Usagi demolished another one.<br>Ami laughed as the two chatted and walked along. _I actually think this will work out alright. Shingo's not cheating on me. He told me he loved me. _  
>"Hey guys, wait up!"<br>"Mako-chan, what's up?"  
>"First things first. Ami, Shingo ordered a dozen roses at the florist's. Maehara-san will send me around with deliveries this evening."<br>"Oh, so everything's alright, _isn't _it, Ami-chan."  
>Ami blushed, smiling. "Yes, I guess so."<br>"Huh?" quoth Mako.  
>"Ami thought wittle brothow was cheating on her. and you are so <em>adorable<em> when you get puzzled, Mako-tan."

Makoto blushed, along with Ami. Makoto and Usagi had been fooling around a bit for awhile, not really steady yet, but definitely beyond kissing.  
>The three went on, razzing each other as the sun rose in a triumph from behind the thick clouds overhead.<p> 


	2. 02:Blistered

***_Author's note: don't own any characters, nor _Sailor Moon_. On with the show._

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><p>"I'd love to go, but I don't feel well tonight."<br>"You worry too much, Ami. You're exhausted probably."  
>"Maybe, Shingo, Maybe. Tell me how Minako's gig went. Loves."<br>"Kisses. Bye." Shingo pocketed his cell phone, and, putting his hands in his pockets, strolled alone to Crown Parlor and brooded.

He and Ami had been going out now and then for three months. It had naturally and easily turned into a bit of a relationship. Ami had always had a lonely home life, Saeko's allergies had precluded the notion of getting any kind of pets, and though she had tried goldfish several times, they always died after a day. Or Luna or Artemis would get to them if they lived long enough for Ami to take them around to show her friends. She loved it. But Shingo felt weird about it.  
>He had a crush on her when he first saw her, but now that they were actually an item, it wasn't the same. He felt like he was in a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, that American writer they heard a bit about in English class. All those years uncertain, and now here's a great prize, his sapphire goddess. Shingo couldn't care. It was empty.<br>_Clingy. That's what she is._ He was relieved to think it, but that relief was immediately matched with a feeling of _oh my God, I'm terrible._ She would snuggle with him, call him every day, and he was glad for it, but more and more he was finding himself thinking that Ami was grand, the idea of the union was grand, but being with her left him cold. She would be on the edge of tears when they would part, and he would to, but it was because _she _was crying that _he_ cried.  
><em>Geez, I start going out with her just as all the girls in my class start to have eyes for me<em>. and that got him as well. He didn't want to be a two-timer, he had seen his sister's friend Mina do it, he had even seen his sister do it.

He was a good person truly, but more to the point he had in his head an object lesson that he really didn't want to go there. Usagi was in an affair – a _sexual_affair – with Makoto, and everyone knew this. What he, Usagi, and Makoto, and Rei, and Mamoru, and probably Ami, knew, was that this had gone on while Usagi and Mamoru were still together. Their relationship was on the rocks, hanging on by a thread, grasping at straws, etc., etc., but they were still going out now and then Saturday nights. Everyone, including Usagi, felt this was monstrously unfair – Mamoru was in K.O.'s College of Medicine, and a big-shot biophysicist from America had just come over to run the place, and he now worked tirelessly to change K.O. from a playboy-ish institution to a powerhouse school, literally a brain farm. So now Mamoru was suddenly in the most grueling medical program in the country, possibly in the world. So his free-time evaporated. Usagi felt bad about the two-timing, but her abandoning Mamoru gave her no pause for thought. He could have chosen between his princess and his petri dish, and he chose his petri dish. They had never done it, but Makoto was a beast in bed. That solved the question for Usagi.

And yet Usagi was still a nervous wreck those two months. She never wavered in her plan, but the idea of her life being so frigging complicated, just from not voicing her intentions to an older man who still honestly loved her, was boggling. That was a big part of the pain. She never actually said, _Shingo, never do what I did_, and all came out well – for her – in the long-run, but it was conspicuous by its absence, and Shingo was certainly impressed by that notion.  
>Eventually he got to the Crown Center. He could have taken the rails, but he walked whenever he could, he liked the time to think. In that respect he did resonate with Ami.<br>When he went in the room was packed. It was Saturday night, Open Stage Night, and Minako would be opening with a backing band of a guitar, synth, and drum machine, the Dandy Lions. It was pretty much a Rie Fu cover act. The crowd went wild. Usagi, Mako, and Rei were up in the front row. Shingo was glad for this; he could just slip in at the back row, and book it out at the end. He wasn't in the mood to explain tonight why Ami wasn't with him, and Usagi would demand this, and her stupid friends would all follow the leader.

"Isn't it great, Shin-chan?"  
>"Huh – <em>Mrs. Mizuno?<em>" Indeed it was. One of the top doctors in Japan, at an amateurish J-pop concert. and a brown paper bag with a suspicious glass bottleneck therein. Saeko's hair and clothes were immaculately neat as usual, her persona was that of some goddess out of an Arthurian myth, but her face was very red.  
>"Where's Ami?"<br>"She's back home. She wasn't feeling well."  
>"Aww, that's too bad. Well I've got nothing to do tonight, whole night off," and as she wallowed in the sordid slough of drunkenness she broke out laughing and fell off the side of her chair. Mercifully, Mina and her band were now doing "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," so none could note the disgraceful scene.<br>"Mrs. Mizuno, do you want to go home?"  
>"Yes, lead the way, sweetie."<br>Shingo couldn't help but blush. Mrs. Mizuno was old, but she was alright looking. Had some up top. And she was actually fitter than her daughter, who had had always been plump like Usagi. And (besides Ami) she was smarter than any girl Shingo had ever met.  
>The two walked home, and at some point they started to hold hands.<br>Ami didn't hear them come in. She was fully asleep and dead to the world when Shingo eased the door shut.  
>Saeko sat down on the tasteful couch, head in hand. She was sobered up a bit and things were moving on and looking slightly prosaic and dull. Shingo looked for something good to say.<br>"So, Mr. Mizuno…"  
>"Gone. When Ami was five. Get a postcard and a fifty-dollar bill every year from him. Sends Ami a picture for her birthday every year. He lives on Castro Street in San Francisco. Makes a living as an artist."<br>"You miss him, don't you?"  
>"No."<br>Shingo didn't know what to say at this.

"I mean, it wouldn't have been easier or harder if he'd stayed. I always made most of the money. He was just a struggling artiste before he left. And he did leave, so he isn't much worth missing, is he? Ami misses him, but then she barely remembers him. I do. Especially when he hit her. Twice. That's when I started to think it would be good if he went." Not with ire. Just analytically and coolly, as if carefully tracing a strand of protein or coding with PyMol.  
>Shingo started to speak, stopped himself, and the two were silent. Then, before he knew what he was saying, "Can I help you any way?"<br>Tears welled up in Saeko's eyes. "Shingo, could. Could. Could you, just. Just hold me?"  
>He did, and they kissed, and they went to her bedroom with clear conscience and quiet footstep as Ami slept in the next room. She stirred once as the bedsprings rattled in spite of their caution, and after an agonizing moment of silence Ami took up snoring again and the two continued their tender love. They fell asleep in each other's arms and dreamt of locked doors opening.<p> 


	3. 03:The Stranger, or Souls in Communion

***_Author's note: don't own the series or the characters. On with the show._

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><p>03:The Stranger (Two Souls in Communion)<p>

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><p>Fields of flowers. These were in Makoto's dreams every night, and since she started working after school at Shinobu Maehara's floral shop they were before her daily. Her passion.<br>Now for a delivery, though.  
><em>Now what card could Shin-chan write?<br>_Makoto debated whether to open the pink card or not.  
>"Kino-chan, remember what I said."<br>"Oh, Maehara-san! I wasn't looking or anything. Just, the card needed straightening."  
>Shinobu smiled. "Okay. But seriously, that's what the customer writes on the card. Not your or my business."<br>"Yes, Maehara-san."  
>Shinobu went back to the counter and Makoto looked at the card. <em>(Three months of Heaven already) Hey, hasn't it been longer than a month? (Shingo to his ) Wait it can't (Sae-tan) and the address<em> she looked at the slip _Ami's place. But that means  
><em>***  
>Makoto knocked on the doorpost. The sun was out but a stiff breeze had cropped up, and Makoto shivered. A beautiful fall would leave soon.<br>"Rei, we need to talk."  
>"Get off my property, Kino-san."<br>"Rei, please. You know I –"  
>"I know nothing of the sort. You knew Tsukino-san was with Mamoru. You could have stopped it."<br>Makoto looked down. "Rei, why did you leave us? What did we do? It happened, yeah, it's horrible, but you won't see any of us anymore? Even Ami, who had nothing to do with it?"  
>Rei looked broken. "Come in."<br>They sat around a table. Rei mulled a bit, tears standing now in her dark eyes. "I loved him. Don't, doesn't anyone understand that?" Rei was now standing up, grasping Makoto's hand. "I loved him! Usagi would never be any good for him. Not just a woman, I'm a lady! The yamato nadeshiko. Strong & beautiful. I even had fangirls now & then. You don't get it. Do you. But that's what he wanted, hang over him a bit and he likes it, why not, oh, why not!" Through sobs.  
>"Then it was certain. She'd won him. That's why you all think I hate men. I even told myself he wasn't worth it since he could ever love that, that <em>bimbo<em>. But I was lying to myself.  
>"Then I see Mamoru without that dead weight on his shoulder, and I asked where <em>she<em> was. I tried to be nice. As a lady I must. As a miko I must. As a longsuffering Catholic I must. Three lives, two faiths, two cultures, all of them. Nothing to drag that other woman down.  
>"He told me how Usagi had taken up with Makoto, how she was seeing her behind his back. And I just felt sick. I avoided you all the next day And the day after that, and now here you are."<br>"Rei. I – I didn't do anything. I didn't know at the time."  
>"It's a lie."<br>"Rei, I was just as sorry as Mamoru about it. Usagi and I get along, and I love her, and it's terrible that she did that to Mamoru. But I didn't break them up."  
>"But she could do the same thing to you. She has already."<br>"Yes. Yes she could. It beats hiding all day."  
>Rei sniffed and stared hard at Makoto. "No. No, you didn't." Rei had been slumped for the last part of the monologue, now she straightened up. "Well, do I have you back as a friend now?"<br>"You always did. We missed you."  
>"Well I'm glad you missed me. And Ami and Mina. Now you wanted to talk?"<br>Makoto looked down at the ground. _How to start._  
>"Well, you know Ami and Shingo."<br>"Of course."  
>"Well, Ami and Shingo are going together."<br>"Okay. I'm not really surprised. And?"  
>"Well, you know, I work at the flower shop –"<br>"Maehara-san's?"  
>"Yes, and she has me take deliveries around on weekends. And, well, I have the bouquet out with the bike. It, um,"<br>"It what?"  
>"Well, it's from Shingo to, to"<br>"To whom, Mako, to whom?"  
>"Saeko Mizuno. Sae-tan, it says on the card. Ami's address."<br>Rei was frozen.  
>"Oh God. Oh God."<br>Makoto took hold of Rei. "Rei, calm down, I know it's"  
>"Dammit, is that whole fricking <em>family<em> screwed up! What did they do to Ami-chan, what did the bastards do to that poor girl!"  
>"Um, well. Ami doesn't know yet."<br>"What!" Makoto was now pinned to the wall. "Well are you going to tell her! Just let her be a fool! Oh God, oh God oh God." Rei had her hand to her mouth & felt her stomach churning.  
>"Rei, Rei! Calm, just calm down, breathe easy."<br>Rei crouched down on the floor, and Makoto leaned down with her.  
>"I didn't deliver the bouquet yet. I couldn't do anything yet. That's, that's why I need you, Rei. I don't know what to do with this."<br>"Well, help Ami-chan, of course!"  
>"I know that, Rei. But how, that's the issue, how. I kind of have to deliver it. I'll probably die of embarrassment if they're both there, but I have to deliver it."<br>"Yes, that's not the tough part."  
>"Rei? Is there really anything we can do about this? I mean, I thought, I don't know, the way over, like we had to stop this, like it was some cheesy manga like <em>Love Hina<em>. But,"  
>"Think of Ami! She loves Shingo and he's cheating on her."<br>"But Shingo really loves Mrs. Mizuno. So what can we do?"  
>Rei was silent at this. "No, we can't do anything. But Ami has to find out."<br>"Definitely."  
>***<p>

After knocking and waiting for ten minutes, Makoto shook her head. Rei was with her. Saeko was apparently gone.  
>"It's no use, Mako-chan. She works how many hours a day?"<br>"Well, we can take it to Shingo, can't we?"  
>"It's your call, is it against delivery-girl rules or…"<br>"Mako-chan! Rei-chan! I haven't seen you in ages." Spacily.  
>"What happened, Ami? You seem happy today," said Makoto, hiding the bouquet behind her back.<br>"It's our three-month anniversary! Shingo and I have been together for three months. I wonder if he'll celebrate."  
>Makoto and Rei looked down. Rei's face burned as Makoto offered, "I'm sure it'll be big. You really love him, don't you?"<br>"Oh, I'd go to the gates of Hell for him. Past them, even."  
>Rei shot an incredulous glance toward Makoto, who acted in kind, and her mind reeled. <em>This is Ami? I'm gone a few months? The papers say this girl is still top of the nation, but right now she's so – airheaded. High almost. Like. Like USAGI.<br>_Makoto sweatdropped and with her free arm led Rei away, cautiously hiding the bouquet. "Well, I'm sure he will."  
>Ami frowned. "Aren't, don't you guys want to stay around, maybe study together a bit? I have a new book by Stephen Hawking I could show you."<br>_Same Ami after all_, Rei thought, then spoke up, "No, we've gotta get going," and they then darted around the corner & into a waiting elevator.

Numbers ticked by slowly.  
>"Oh, nice job! You lost your nerve!" said Rei.<br>"You have a better idea? Just drop the bomb, and really the only proof we have is just one card? They'll laugh in our faces. They're guilty, but they'll laugh." Makoto shot back. "If we're lucky we'll get out without running into Loverboy and Mrs. Robinson."  
>Rei had to agree with this. "Well, where to now? I don't have any temple work tonight, anything we can do?"<br>"Well, I have a key to the florist. If he doesn't get the bouquet, and Maehara-san tells customers when the work will be ready and sticks to it like glue, so he'll be expecting it today, he'll call the florist."  
>"And?"<br>"You answer it."  
>"What? Me? He'll know it's me!"<br>"He placed the order with Maehara-san. And he'll never expect that you're working there. Just pick up and tell him that it's taking longer than expected, and we'll bring it by Sunday afternoon. Maehara is closing this weekend and going away, so she'll never find out."  
>"That'll work," Rei said. "That'll work. Mako-chan, you're a genius!"<p> 


	4. 04:The Last Thing on My Mind

_**Don't own the characters or the series. On with the show._

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><p><em><em>04:The Last Thing on My Mind

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><p>Shingo almost felt himself lord of the manor as he sat, legs propped up on the coffee table, in the Mizuno apartment. Except Ami sat next to him. And the true lady of the manor was away.<br>_I don't know why I did it. No idea. Well, okay, I called Maehara's Florist, and they won't have it till tomorrow. So I thought Saeko would be here. NEVER occurred to me she'd be working. So here I'm stuck.  
><em>"Shin-chan, are you alright."  
>"Oh, fine."<br>A pause. "Something's wrong, isn't? Tell Ami-chan."  
>"Ami, no,"<br>"It's okay," and she began an embrace. Shingo fought himself into accepting it. He felt a little sick. Here he was, hot for Mrs. Mizuno, and Ami was not hot but obsessive for him, and he had to pretend to accept this.

This went on for about ten minutes, Ami just sort of clinging to him, her eyes clenched shut and tears standing out, holding onto Shingo as if he were a teddy bear, and Shingo was livid, livid with shame that this girl needed him and livid that he had come for nothing.

"Ami, look," quick and sharp, his face red. She shrank back.  
><em>Picture of an axemurderer. Calmly.<br>_"Um. Okay, here's the thing."  
>"Okay?" from Ami. Shingo saw some hope. <em>My cover's not gone yet. Hmm.<em>  
>"Look. I, guess your life's not been good, right?"<br>Ami beamed. "With you, it –"  
>"Without me, I mean."<br>Deflated now. "No. Mom always works. And Dad's in America."  
><em>Yes, Mommy sure <strong>does<strong> work_, and he hated himself for his irreverence.  
>"Well." Inspiration. "How did you feel when you met me?"<br>Ami's eyes briefly went starry, with a languishing smile to match. _Cripes, she's like Usagi! _Then she seemed to pull herself together to reflect.  
>"You, you gave me, life. I mean, I have studies, and I still get top of the country and all that, but what am I really close to? A lot of times I'm ill, or I have to study, so I can't hang with them a lot. Minako compares us to a magical girl superhero team when we're together, and that's right for them. But I'm not really part of it."<br>Ami looked down. Shingo was also.  
>"But I've got you. I thought I did."<br>Shingo jumped slightly within himself. A slight twitch. _No need to hide it, no need to deny. Guess she does see it._  
>"You don't call anymore. We never go anywhere." No tears, bereft of fight or agony, it was plain. She could be speaking of the heat death of the universe, eons away. Bad things happening to good people. Something removed from grandchildren or greatgrandchildren, something removed from the governments and creeds of today. A natural fact, unpleasant but there, and requiring some acknowledgement anyway. "And even if you aren't," a catching of the voice, "aren't seeing anyone else, I don't think you care about me like I do about you."<br>She looked up, and to Shingo's credit his eyes, behind which lay this whole intrigue, could meet Ami's intense Sapphire lights. "Am I right?"  
>"Ami."<br>"Yes?"  
>Shingo was to the point of tears. He didn't even argue them away as he had been doing for so long. "I've been cheating on you."<br>Ami sat back. Looked at the crammed bookshelf that dwarfed the television, an outmoded thing from the seventies, small. The bookshelf full of Hawking and Feynman and Hitchens. Einstein and Sommerfeld. Gray. Hardy and Newton. The cataloging of the cosmos and the body. Numbers. Reason. Medicine and molecular phenomena. Chemistry and calculus. Her test papers covering the fridge in the kitchen. Her strength. She could be strong, why should this matter? A case in point. Rei locked away for months from her friends, and she cared so deeply about personalities. She even had two religions to her name, the nationalist depth of Shinto and the epic, international and interepochal creed of Christ. That was Rei Hino. Minako Aino lived for the bright lights. An idol, why should there be unhappiness? It was not science but it was an aim. Usagi had appetites, gorging, and she always turned up lucky with people to fawn over her, doting parents and Mamoru, and when he would not dote, there was Makoto, who had cooking. It was not that love was barren for all, just for some. Ami was one. Her mother was one. Mamoru could not hold it either. Best for such to have science, she thought. Something away from the heart. And Rei had not grasped it. _I flew too close to the sun. I had to stray, and it would not work. Stress of a bridge built too long, or a cell membrane grown too big. My life can't hold love. _The faintest suggestion, a faint burning prescient of a tear, and she did not fight or kill it, it just ceased.  
>"Well, I guess there's nothing left but for you to go." Not antagonistic, but cold. Not bubbly, bordering on emotionally unstable as Usagi could occasionally be. All business. Strict as she had been before she had any friends. She certainly had one less after this business.<br>Shingo got up, went to the door, and eyes clenched shut, whirled. "Ami I'm sleeping with your mother." He then flew forth from the apartment, kicking the door shut behind him, and that slam was as the slam of a coffin lid the size of the world to Ami right then.

"Mako, wake up!"  
>"Wuh!" Makoto snapped awake. She and Rei had slept over at Mako's apartment after their stratagem.<br>"I have a feeling something's wrong," Rei said. This was not to be taken lightly; her psychic abilities were well known. Many people kept coming to Hikawa shrine, in spite of Old Man Hino's indiscretions, solely because of this raven-haired girl who could (for a nominal fee) tell the future.  
>"Is, is it Ami?"<br>"I think it is."  
>"Well, what about it? Did you see anything?"<br>"I don't know, I was asleep, and I can't do it as well with dreams."  
>"So you don't –"<br>"No, I don't know, just, let's get going!"  
>So the two dressed and hurried out, with no idea what to do or what had happened, each hoping the best for their dear friend.<p> 


	5. 05:Jerusalem Ridge

_**don't own the characters or series._

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><p>05:Jerusalem Ridge<p>

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><p>The theater of dreams in darkness.<br>***

_"Now, Mrs. Mizuno, I'm sure Ami will do fine at our Jerusalem Ridge Cram School."  
>"I certainly hope so, Mrs. Urashima. I know she's young, but –"<br>"Youth doesn't enter into it. She has the scores. We're sure that she can do the work. The top of the nation, however old she may be, will always be welcome to forward JRCS. And I'm sure her father and mother are quite worthy of thanks?"  
>"Oh, you're too kind. Um, yes, her <span>mother<span>_ _has seen to it that she always gets into the best institutions. My husband, you see, left –"  
>"Oh, I'm dreadfully sorry!"<br>"Not at all. He is an artist, now. That was his passion. And he is better paid than he was when we tried to balance that with a relationship. He works in America now. San Francisco. Castro Street."  
>"Oh, how nice."<br>"Indeed. As I was saying, nothing but the best for Ami. Cherry Hill Pre-Kindergarten. Three months at T*A Kindergarten, before they told me they were not up to the standards that she should require. Mugen Kindergarten. And she's just been two years at Mugen Primary."  
>"Well, I'm sure Ami will get along fine if she will just apply herself. And make no mistake about it, Mrs. Mizuno, this is the finest preparatory institution in Japan, and quite probably – and I'm not bragging but telling the truth – in the world, Mrs. Mizuno. We put fifty percent of last year's outgoing graduates into the California Institute of Technology, twenty-five percent into the Laplace Institute of Technology, and the rest we put into Cambridge. We're referred to as Pre-Freshman Caltech."<br>"I know your credentials, Mrs. Urashima. I just hope Ami won't let you down."  
>"Why do you say that?"<br>"Well, why not? I got to MIT through hard work. The trouble is, her father wasn't renowned for credibility. Nor most of his side. Drinkers and dreamers, Mrs. Urashima. Not on my side, but you see, a certain indiscretion –"  
>"Yes, yes."<br>"I think you understand. I have the most confidence in Ami. I taught her to read before she crawled out of the crib, and she got the rudiments of math shortly after that. She goes straight to the books, nothing else. Only her teachers, and I agree, mentioned that she really should have some activities, and now she has really taken to swimming."  
>"Well, that's quite good."<br>"Yes, it's becoming almost a dead heat between swimming and studying. I'm sure she'll get down to the books like she always does though. Just like me when I was a girl. And she's a very good girl, just tell her where to go and she'll go, and find a better way to get there, no doubt."  
>***<em>

_"Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome you to our commencement ceremony here at Jerusalem Ridge. This institution was founded on the notion that success is not given on a silver platter. Not by any means. No, it only offers itself to those who will take it. But the hand that holds victory is a high one, so the brilliant must build engines to get there.  
>"Always there will be people trying to get ahead. They are people, and they deserve a great measure of approbation, who work hard, regardless of handicaps and difficulties they face. There may be a few brilliant among them, who take somewhat more quickly to the material, and who can do a little bit more with the life allotted us all. And then there are the chances of the divine, geniuses, who see the world around them and can truthfully say, I may improve this, and can quickly and easily set about doing so. Tonight we are here to give particular honor to a genius. This student came when two years through Mugen Primary, a renowned college of a renowned institution (an institution quite closely allied through history and practice with our own), overseen by Dr. Tomoe, an illustrious man, the Bacon of our age.<br>"This student has without fail scored at the top of the national exams, and while she has sometimes, once, been equaled, she has never been bettered.  
>"Therefore, please recognize and greet with applause the winner of the Mercury Award, Miss Ami Mizuno!"<br>***_

_"The wise man admonishes that no wise man will leave the certain for the uncertain. This is indeed the bedrock of scientific principle. That which is tried and true, or may be tried and true even through novel application, furthers science. It is by that aim that we left the caves, got the fire and the wheel, and come to sit here today in a society and civilization. An d where you find civilization, you will again find religion. Even in the strictest rejection of the church by an unforgiving regime, you will find a religion.  
>"Aberrations of logic. Even atheists eventually come to this skeleton in the evolutionary concept. Only once dismiss religion on the basis of the remarks (unfounded then and there) of your scientific progenitors, and you act without evidence and therefore fall back on religion."<br>***_

_"Ami, I don't understand. You want to go where__?"  
>"Juuban, Mother. Please. I have the exams, I'm the youngest to complete the work at Jerusalem Ridge"<br>"That may be, and I am very proud, Ami, very proud. But you can't through that away, you can't want that."  
>"Mother, it made me sick at Mugen. Please!"<br>"You felt sick, and why possibly could you feel sick?"  
>"W – they didn't care, Mother. I mean, I just get ill sometimes, it feels like it's all hopeless, I get so worried about whether everything –"<br>"Worried! Worried! You get worried? I get worried. I get worried that you'll end up like your father. You know? Spend the rest of your life doodling like Hiro-baka! I saw those poems you wrote. You could have studied. That's what you'll do at Juuban, waste your time cosplaying and chasing idols and playing video games. Next thing you'll be into burusera for money."  
>"Mother, please."<br>"Please what? I work my fingers to the bone. I get ten hours of sleep in three days sometimes, and it's all to afford the extra legs up you get. You want to waste it?"  
>"No, Mother, no!"<br>_"_Then what is the whole issue, Ami? You're simply wasting time. Go to Mugen. Please. Get a good education. Mugen students go places. They get the best grants. You'll be happy the rest of your life if you just make this choice, Ami."  
>"Okay, Mother, I'll go."<em>

_"She goes to Juuban after all. She gets into the best academy in the country. Doctor Tomoe tells me in person how much of a credit she is to the university – and she can't handle it. She gets sick and she leaves. Everything is in vain. Of course she does well now, she'll never be challenged in that scummy school. None but sluts and bums there. Nothing good can come of it, I'm sure of it."_  
>***<p>

"_I don't like that Usagi girl you're hanging out with. And that Mamoru boy, how much older is he?"  
>"But she's nice, Mother. And they don't"<br>"Oh, I doubt they don't."  
>"Well actually, they stopped seeing each other."<br>"Oh, she was cheating, was she?"  
>"I don't know. I don't see how she could."<br>_"_Nonsense. A waste of time." _

"_Oh, I'm sure she'll be glad to see you. She's resting right now. She doesn't feel well."  
>"Has she been like this since Saturday night?"<br>"Yes, she has just been ill since then. She'll have so far to catch up. Well, you can wait up as long as you want, maybe she'll come too. I have to get to work shortly."  
>"Thanks, Mrs. Mizuno."<em>

_"Ami, can you hear us?"_  
><em>"I don't know if she can, Rei."<em>  
><em>"This is really horrible. She was, she just passed out?"<em>  
><em>"It was too much, I guess. Her mother and all. It really sent you for a loop. Hell, it sent me for a loop, and you sure could say my going with Usagi is alternative enough. And cheating."<em>  
><em>"That old witch. That old witch. She did it. She's got no one, now. No one but her friends."<em>  
><em>Sobs and an embrace.<em>


	6. 06:Heroes and Villains

_I don't own the story or the characters. This is the end of it all. I may do something of a sequel, but for now this is the end of the matter. On to other stuff when I can. _

* * *

><p>06:Heroes and Villains<p>

* * *

><p>Shingo and Saeko sat at a restaurant. It was the first whole evening Saeko had off in a few months. All around them the cheerful talk lilted. None stared at the couple, none marked the difference in age because they could easily be taken for mother and son. The waiter came up and offered a choice of a fine merlot or a burgundy.<p>

Neither talked, just studied their drinks and looked at the plates, the candlelights, and in the other's face when the other was looking away.

"We need to stop."  
>Shingo felt an inward sigh of relief. He had experienced with this woman the first and likely best carnal experiences of his life, but there was the restlessness. Breaking Ami's mind so as to free the baggage of two women at once was not pleasant, but mixed with the shame of sending her to bed was the relief of being shut of it. He was like a murderer who has finished planning and has done the deed, and whether he rots in prison for the rest of his days or remains a wanted man on the lam, at least he has the agony in retrospect rather than waiting and anticipation. And how was the sapphire maiden now? Last he knew – Rei and Makoto had driven him away and blacked both his eyes and bloodied his nose, and he just took it as some penance – she was like Randle Patrick McMurphy at the end of the movie, dressed as for school but sitting motionless on the couch, staring straight ahead, some book by Einstein or Feynman in her lap, unread. Saeko had left for work at some point. Perhaps, hopefully, she had gotten better. He wondered if he really could. And that spoiled his relationship with Saeko, haunted him.<br>"We need to stop. I could be your mother."  
>"Yeah. It is kind of. Out there."<br>"Plus…" but Saeko didn't need to finish. Shingo knew it.  
><em>We never see each other. My relationship with Ami, my relationship with Saeko, it never works because I never care. Either I can't put the time in or she can't or something. Anyway it sucks when it has to end messy, like what happened with Ami. <em>He briefly thought if he ever had loved Ami, or could again. There was nothing there. He was sorry, no question there. But what was there to do about it? She was broken. Anything he could have done, he should have done before casting her away and returning just long enough to mention it was her overbearing mother who had always provided for her.

"I know. I'll always think of you." Shingo once again recognized the dull thud of something great dying. The sort of thud that came about when he finally went out with Ami, the girl he had gazed at on the beach, the girl he had always yearned to be with.

He had felt that way when he got into Mugen High School, with its rigorous entrance exam. The thrill of being one of the first classes to try out for an institution that had only recently begun to let people in midway through their education – Tomoe and his Mugen powerhouse had lost none of their acclaim through this liberal step. _I just walked into class the first day and it was gone. It wasn't Valhalla, just another classroom. _He idly wondered as he toyed with his pasta, some dish with an inconceivable name that he forgot as soon as he handed the menu over, whether his whole life would be like this. His parents, his sister, his friends and contemporaries all remarked on his brooding, his seriousness. He certainly had never encouraged or tolerated his sister's vapidity like Ikuko and Kenji had.

"Yes, I'll always think of you, too," Saeko returned, and sighed, head resting in her hand.  
>They ate in silence and headed out afterwards, a spring drizzle making everything soggy and grim. A goodbye kiss, and Shingo walked out of Saeko's life.<br>Saeko sighed.

Rei and Makoto sat up with Ami every day. They had really taken up living at her apartment; any spare time they spent with her. Come home from school to the Mizuno's apartment mansion. Ikuko kept the same hours, often at home as if by afterthought. She was not above using uppers.  
>Ami had gone to bed for more than a week. No eating, nothing, just sleep, fitful tossing and turning. Obviously nightmares permeated her taxed brain. When she began to go about she was just <em>there<em>. She was not unconscious, just composed as if every moment were just after some sobering disappointment. As if her mother's perfidy had been on a lesser scale and exposed to her every instant. She was broken, with a sort of routhousand-yard-stare.

"Ami, Lord, please, please come out of this," Makoto said again and again, to no avail. Rei sat on the couch as well. The pair's schoolwork lay in a mingled pile on the coffee table, along with innumerable cups of tea at varying degrees of depletion. They slept irregularly, watching over Ami. When school time came they would rise, collect the requisite work, and go. They kept regular baths but were unkempt with general shortness of sleep and deep depression. Makoto would coax Ami constantly, stroking her blue tresses and hugging her and tenderly kissing her as a mother does to her feverish child, and the poor girl sat there still. Occasionally she would seem on the verge of a smile – the _verge_ of a smile – just enough to give Makoto and Rei hope.

Rei sniffed and sobbed constantly. Life indeed had sank. Ami seemed between life and death, and they were the only ones to pick up the pieces. Their friends were nowhere to be found. Usagi had initially come around now and then, and even intimated her jealousy of Makoto's caresses for Ami, but quickly she stopped turning up. Minako came by now and then, but her career was flying, and she was already discovered. Huge crowds turned up to her shows and nearly demolished the places. Virgin Records had given her a contract, and she would work on her album over the summer, and that fall she would appear on _Snooki in the Morning_, a big American talk show. Mamoru was busy as always. Shingo or Saeko certainly never came around really. Ami, Rei, and Makoto were one world.

"Mako?"  
>"Yes, Rei?"<br>"How. Why does all this happen? Why does life go this way?"  
>"I don't know, Rei. Does your faith say anything?"<br>"The Church? It can't even give a straight answer. Not a single line in a missal or the Catechism, not a single bit in a textbook, 'Bad things happen to good people because of a, b, and c…,' nothing like that. It just goes bad."  
><em>Rei is a psychic, a miko, and she has a God in Heaven and she can't even explain this. <em>It was the undoing of another legend for Makoto. Somewhere after any real love, which had worn especially well observing Ami and Shingo, then Shingo and Saeko. Even Ami and Saeko. Herself and Usagi. No need for a list, it was for everyone.

Makoto laughed hollowly. "You know? I heard Usagi is spending time with Umino now. Naru is nowhere."  
>"Oh God," Rei spat.<br>"I guess us three will always be on the outside looking in," Makoto said, and it was a relief, the coming of a true identity. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

Ami grasped Makoto's and Rei's hands, each in each.  
>"Ami!" both in one breath.<br>Ami's face told the tale of the past crazy season. She had seen Hell and come back, it seemed.

"Yes, things just happen that way I guess."  
>"Ami, are you," Rei was about to say <em>alright?<em> but as she spoke she realized that she wouldn't be alright, and Sakeo and Usagi and Mina and nobody would never be alright.

"I'll be fine. I'll live. I'll see you around, I've got school tomorrow, I'd better hit the books a bit." And Ami got up and tottered a bit, collapsing.  
>"Ami!"<br>Ami grinned, but it was a hard grin, like she had just had a tooth pulled. "I need some food first."  
>The three had a sprawling dinner, they emptied six containers of Instant Ramen and had a big cake that Makoto had made in a Sunday morning's daze three days before, but there was no mirth or talk at all. It was nothing like Crown Parlor had been the last spring, when Usagi had still been with Mamoru, really before everything had gotten complicated. A place for everything and everything in its place.<p>

And not a word about Saeko. Or Shingo. Or anyone.

And with a flash all three schoolgirls recognized that not only were the teenage years gone for them, in spirit if not in chronology. They would go alone through this world, they must surely. All the world prospered but them. Ami had been wrong just once in her life. She had thought herself out of the perceived Magical Girl Team complex. They were in truth as gunslingers going through a barren time and land, and all but the strength they had barely given each other, really hunted desperately, had deserted them and would never come back.

And none of them wept.

It was an identity, at least.


End file.
